Crime reporting as a measure of institutional development

This article investigates the determinants of the rate of crime reporting. The rate of crime reporting is the fraction of the total number of crimes that is actually reported to the police. The article constructs this variable by crossing data from official crime records with data from victimization surveys. The results show that the variation of rates of crime reporting across countries is strongly related to measures of institutional stability, to police presence, and, most important, to a subjective index of corruption. This evidence uncovers the underlying forces determining the correlation between reporting rates and income per capita noticed by Soares (2004). In addition, it supports the view that subjective indexes of governance and institutional development indeed capture relevant dimensions of the performance and efficiency of the public sector. This article uses data from several different international sources to analyze the determinants of the rate of crime reporting. I show that crime reporting is strongly related to institutional stability, police presence, and perceived corruption. This evidence supports the view that subjective measures of institutional development do capture relevant dimensions of governance practices within the public sector. The remainder of the article is structured as follows. Section II presents an informal theory of the determinants of the reporting rate and discusses the variables selected for the empirical analysis. Section III describes the definitions and sources of the data. Section IV discusses the statistical methods used in the analysis and the results, and Section V concludes the article. © 2004 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.